Meet the 6 social startups joining virtual incubator i2i from across Pakistan

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[Note:this photo is of i2i's first class of startups, which
graduated this January].

When Plan9 began incubating its first class of startups, in
November 2012, it was heralded as a welcome addition to Pakistan’s
startup scene.

Backed by the Punjab Information Technology Board, a government
entity, and supported by well-known advisors on the Lahore scene,
including Wamda contributor Khurram Zafar, the CIO at the Lahore
Stock Exchange, and Jehan Ara, the female President of the Pakistan
Software Houses Association, among others.
Plan9 incubated an impressive 14 companies in its first round,
10 of which survived its milestones over six months, five of which are
still running.

Its most famous graduate is Eyedeus Labs, which develops “computer
vision” technologies for mobile devices, to enable human-computer
interaction and augmented reality. This summer, Eyedeus was
accepted to BlackBox Connect, a two-week incubation program in
Palo Alto that Egyptian startup Instabug also joined.

As Lahore’s Plan9 echoes the Y Combinator model that’s become so
popular in the Arab world, Pakistan’s newest incubator is debuting
a virtual model, looking to programs like the Unreasonable Institute,
Artemisia, and
Agora
Partnerships, which offer startup training intensives or
retreats.

Invest2 innovate, also
know as i2i, has already incubated four socially-minded and
green initiatives during its pilot from November 2012 to this
January. This past weekend, it launched its first full
incubation round, bringing together six startups from across
Pakistan for their first weekend intensive. (no, its theme song
is not viral hit Eye
to Eye, by summer YouTube phenom Taher Shah).

Focusing on retreats rather than in-house incubation, i2i offers
weekend intensives every three weeks, which provide mentorship,
accounting and legal support, with Skype in the interim.

While it’s not as early stage as its fellow Lahore-based incubator,
i2i is hosting one recent Plan9 graduate, and hoping to iron out a
similar agreement with another incubator at the National University
of Science and Technology (NUST). “We’ll look into how we can
fasttrack applicants from other incubators into our pipeline,”
explains i2i founder Kalsoom Lakhani.

The challenge of creating a financially viable virtual
incubator

In the Arab world, diving into another round of incubation after
graduation is usually only a tactic preferred by founders who come
up with a completely
new idea. Yet i2i is pitching itself as a new concept for
startups distributed around the country. While its model began with
one-to-one consulting, it’s now focusing on building a community to
fill a large gap in the Pakistani ecosystem, says Lakhani.

Unlike Plan9, i2i not backed by the government, and unlike most
incubators worldwide, it doesn’t take a specific portion of equity
for its services, preferring to charge a flat fee and take an
average of 3% equity.

Next year, however, the incubator will look to raise a fund and
become financially viable. It will still focus on putting
socially-minded startups first, says Lakhani, avoiding narrow
metrics of success. “The number one thing that our startups
say that they got out of our training was the learning and the
mentorship. That kind of education is a much bigger metric of
success than whether they received investment or not,” she
says.

However, completely forgoing investment as a measure of success
won’t help the ecosystem if follow-on funding is, in fact, scarce.
While i2i might be available to fund Plan9 graduates, angels and
VCs will have to invest in i2i’s graduates if the ecosystem is to
provide viable opportunities for startups to evolve in the market
and not just in training sessions.

Lakhani’s point holds water in the Arab world, however; simply
receiving follow-on funding from an angel certainly does not
guarantee that a startup will scale successfully. If an incubator
hasn't helped the startup find good product-market fit, all of the
angel investment in the world won’t make it sustainable.

For i2i, this second round of startups will be its test, as the
next four months prove whether their models are ready for local,
regional, or global markets. Thus far, the ideas don’t stray from
most of what entrepreneurs are building in the Arab world, but a
pharmaceutical vetting company and a health food bar might bring
something completely new to Pakistan’s young startup scene.

Entaly

Entaly, founded by Mustafa Saeed, aims to gamify online learning
paradigms to make learning and education a more fun, engaging and
personalized experience. With tailored game dynamics, the startup
hopes to effect the lives of the masses by offered the same
education that earlier could only be accessed by a few.

The Reading Room Project (RRP)

The Reading Room Project, founded by Mashall Chaudhri, looks to
serve the nearly 25 million children who are denied the right to an
education, and the 65% of children aged 5-16 who cannot read a
simple story in any language. The project will give low-income
Pakistani schoolchildren access to excellent learning resources via
the internet in a supportive environment.

Odd Jobber

Odd Jobber, built by Adnan Khawaja, will be a matchmaking job
platform for low income, low-skilled workers, using phone calls and
SMS to help job seekers reach the mainstream market. It will be
designed to serve those who works in jobs with frequent
transactions, such as taxi drivers, domestic workers, cooks, and
construction workers.

NutriNysa

NutriNysa, founded by Junaid Malik, will create Rais’n d’Bar, an
organic, all-natural and fair-trade energy bar made with the
ingredients sourced directly from farmers in the Gilgit-Baltistan
region at fair-trade prices. A lifestyle brand, it will target
urban demographics ranging from corporate employees, health
conscious people, weight watchers and physically active youth.

Asli Goli

Asli Goli, built by Saim Siddiqui, is an SMS-based pharmaceutical
product verification service for consumers, that uses unique serial
numbers printed on the product to combat the glut of counterfeit
products in the Pakistani market. One of its ultimate goals is to
enable the Pakistani pharmaceutical industry to resume exports to
the EU.

Amal Academy

Amal Academy, founded by Benje Williams, will work to develop
professional and life skills amongst the youth in Pakistan, in
order to empower underprivileged students to realize their
professional dreams. By bridging the gap that exists between the
education system and soft skills needed in the market, Amal Academy
hopes to train students in low-income schools, reaching
100,000 disadvanatged students within 9 years.

Nina is director of Launchpad UAE, a platform that fosters the development and execution of social impact enterprises and corporate social responsibility initiatives, for sustainable environmental, economic and human capital development. Previously she was editor-in-chief at Wamda and more recently managing director of Flat6Labs Abu Dhabi.